Résumés
Abstract
In the third part of his Dialogus de viris et foeminis aetate nostra florentibus, Paolo Giovio lists over one hundred illustrious women of his time and paints an unusual picture of Italian society. The catalogue is not a review of the virtues or superiority of women but rather an account of the political use of female representations. Women are associated with the political status of a city, and all references to the physicality of women illustrate the paradox of politics itself. The female body is used as a test case to examine the exercise of power and to demonstrate the reasons for different political strategies in different courts before the dramatic Sack of Rome in 1527. Through an analysis of the Dialogus and comparison with other contemporary treatises on female figures, this article highlights the political use of the female shape, described and paradoxically modified, according to government strategy. A salient example is the ambiguous representation of Vittoria Colonna, seen by Paolo Giovio as the model for women in the Renaissance.
Keywords:
- Paolo Giovio,
- Vittoria Colonna,
- Female Body,
- Virility/Femininity,
- Paradox
Résumé
Dans la troisième partie de son Dialogus de viris et foeminis ætate nostra florentibus, Paolo Giovio dresse une liste de plus de 100 femmes illustres de son temps et brosse un tableau insolite de la société italienne. Ce catalogue ne passe pas en revue les vertus ou de la supériorité des femmes mais il rend compte de l’usage politique des représentations féminines. Les femmes sont associées au statut politique d’une ville et toutes les références à la dimension physique des femmes illustrent le paradoxe de la politique elle-même. Le corps féminin est utilisé comme terrain d’exploration pour examiner l’exercice du pouvoir et pour démontrer les raisons de diverses stratégies politiques dans différentes cours avant le dramatique sac de Rome en 1527. À travers une analyse du Dialogus et une comparaison avec d’autres traités contemporains portant sur des figures féminines, cet article met en évidence l’usage politique de la forme féminine, décrite et paradoxalement modifiée, en fonction d’une stratégie gouvernementale. En témoigne l’exemple frappant de la représentation ambiguë de Vittoria Colonna, en qui Paolo Giovio voyait le modèle de la femme à la Renaissance.
Parties annexes
Bibliography
- Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius. Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex. Edited and translated by Albert Rabil Jr. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
- Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius. De nobilitate et praecellentia foeminei sexus. Edited by Roland Antonioli, Charles Béné, and Odette Sauvage. Geneva: Droz, 1990.
- Ariosto, Ludovico. Orlando furioso. Edited by Lanfranco Caretti. Vol. 1. Turin: Einaudi, 2015.
- Bernini, Rita. “Foppa Caradosso.” In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Vol. 47. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1997.
- Cassese, Michele. “Giovanna e Maria d’Aragona: Due sorelle napoletane ‘doppio pregio ad una etade’ e il rapporto con il potere nel ’500.” In Donne di potere nel Rinascimento, edited by Letizia Arcangeli and Susanna Peyronel, 669–707. Rome: Viella, 2003.
- Castiglione, Baldassare. The Book of the Courtier. Edited by Daniel Javitch. Translated by Charles S. Singleton. New York: Norton, 2002.
- Castiglione, Baldassare. Il libro del Cortegiano. Edited by Vittorio Cian. Florence: Sansoni, 1929.
- Castiglione, Baldassare. Opere volgari e latine. Padua: Presso Giuseppe Comino, 1733.
- Castiglione, Baldassare. The Perfect Courtier: His Life and Letters, 1478–1529. Translated by Julia Mary Cartwright Ady. Vol. 2. London: John Murray, 1908.
- Copello, Veronica. “‘Ex illo mea, mi Daniel, Victoria pendet’: A Forgotten Spiritual Epigram by Vittoria Colonna.” In Vittoria Colonna: Poetry, Religion, Art, Impact, edited by Virginia Cox and Shannon McHugh, 135–52. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048552603-009.
- Cox, Virginia. “The Exemplary Vittoria Colonna.” In A Companion to Vittoria Colonna, edited by Abigail Brundin, Tatiana Crivelli, and Maria Teresa Sapegno, 467–501. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004322332_015.
- Cox, Virginia. “Women Writers and the Canons in Sixteenth-Century Italy: The Case of Vittoria Colonna.” In Strong Voices, Weak History: Early Women Writers and Canons in England, France, and Italy, edited by Pamela Joseph Benson and Victoria Kirkham, 14–31. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
- D’Ascia, Luca. “Galeazzo Flavio Capella traduttore di Erasmo.” Lettere Italiane 42, no. 1 (1990): 66–88.
- Dionisotti, Carlo. Appunti sul Bembo e su Vittoria Colonna. In Carlo Dionisotti: Scritti sul Bembo, edited by Claudio Vela. Turin: Einaudi, 2002.
- Doglio, Maria Luisa. Introduction to Della eccellenza e dignità delle donne, by Galeazzo Flavio Capra, 13–62. Edited by Maria Luisa Doglio. Rome: Bulzoni, 2001.
- Esposito, Anna. “Paolo Giovio: Una testimonianza inedita dal notarile romano.” Roma nel Rinascimento (2015): 405–15.
- Korkowski, Eugene. “Agrippa as Ironist.” Neophilologus 60 (1976): 594–607. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01512650.
- Giovio, Paolo. Dialogo sugli uomini e le donne illustri del nostro tempo. Edited by Franco Minonzio. Turin: Aragno, 2011.
- Giovio, Paolo. Lettere. Edited by Giuseppe Guido Ferrero. Vol. 1. Rome: Istituto Poligrafico, Libreria dello Stato, 1956.
- Giovio, Paolo. Notable Men and Women of Our Time. Edited and translated by Kenneth Gouwens. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
- Goethals, Jessica. “The Flowers of Italian Literature: Language, Imitation and Gender Debates in Paolo Giovio’s Dialogus de viris et foeminis aetate nostra florentibus.” Renaissance Studies 29, no. 5 (November 2015): 749–71. https://doi.org/10.1111/rest.12108.
- Gouwens, Kenneth. “Female Virtue and the Embodiment of Beauty: Vittoria Colonna in Paolo Giovio’s Notable Men and Women.” Renaissance Quarterly 68, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 33–97. https://doi.org/10.1086/681308.
- Gouwens, Kenneth. Introduction to Notable Men and Women of Our Time, by Paolo Giovio, vii–xxi. Edited and translated by Kenneth Gouwens. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
- Gouwens, Kenneth. “Meanings of Masculinity in Paolo Giovio’s ‘Ischian’ Dialogues.” I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 17, no. 1 (Spring 2014): 79–101. https://doi.org/10.1086/675764.
- Michelacci, Lara. “‘Un poco di perfetto balsamo per un suo estremo bisogno’: Vittoria Colonna e la bellezza femminile.” Esperienze Letterarie 33, no. 3 (2018): 3–18.
- Minonzio, Franco, ed. Dialogo sugli uomini e le donne illustri del nostro tempo, by Paolo Giovio. Turin: Aragno, 2011.
- Perrone Compagni, Vittoria. “L’innocenza di Eva: Retorica e teologia nel De nobilitate foeminei sexus di Agrippa.” Bruniana & Campanelliana 12, no. 1 (2006): 59–80. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24334183.
- Pontano, Giovanni. De principe liber. Edited by Guido M. Cappelli. Rome: Salerno editrice, 2003.
- Robin, Diana. “The Breasts of Vittoria Colonna.” California Italian Studies 3, no. 1 (2012): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.5070/C331009002.
- Scala, Mirella. “Encomi e dediche nelle prime relazioni culturali di Vittoria Colonna.” Periodico della Società Storica comense 54 (1990): 97–112.
- Telle, Émile. L’œuvre de Marguerite d’Angoulême, reine de Navarre et la querelle des femmes. Geneva: Slatkine, 1969. First published 1937 (Toulouse).
- Travi, Ernesto. Introduction to Paulii Iovii Opera, edited by Ernesto Travi and Mariagrazia Penco, 152–56. Vol. 9, Dialogi et descriptiones. Rome: Istituto poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato-Libreria, 1984.
- Vecce, Carlo. “Paolo Giovio e Vittoria Colonna.” Periodico della Società Storica comense 54 (1990): 67–93.
- Zimmermann, T. C. Price. Paolo Giovio: The Historian and the Crisis of Sixteenth-Century Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
- Zimmermann, T. C. Price. “Paolo Giovio.” In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Vol. 56. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italia, 2001.